We noticed the church met primarily in homes. And, we found no reference to a special building being built for the purpose of housing the church. So where did the church buildings come from?

From the beginning the church was being persecuted by the Jewish leadership; Stephen being one of the first martyrs. Saul of Tarsus was one of the enforcers of the Sanhedrin.

After some time, the Roman government began persecuting Christians. They even turned it into a sport. Part of the Coliseum in Rome was dedicated to the housing of Christians. The Christians were brought up from their holdings to be used as entertainment by feeding them to wild animals. Rome had a string of evil emperors including Caligula, Nero, and Domician. The church was driven into hiding.

The church was persecuted for two hundred years until the reign of Constantine the Great. This Roman emperor embraced Christianity and made the church a legal institution. During his reign Christians gained freedom to worship. His influence also marks the beginning of the Byzantine period of art and of Catholicism. Constantine was also the first pope of the Catholic church. He moved the capital from Rome to Constantinople, which is now Istanbul Turkey. This later created a split politically and religiously. From the split came the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox religions. It is interesting how non-Christian sources view the changes caused by the recognition of Christianity by the government:

We will recognize this pattern as the Christian adaptation of a very ancient heritage, the divine kingship of Egypt and the Near East; if the Byzantine emperors, unlike their pagan predecessors, could no longer claim the status of gods, they retained an equally unique and exalted role by placing themselves at the head of the Church as well as of the State. Nor did the tradition die with the fall of Constantinople. The tsars of Russia claimed the mantle of the Byzantine emperors, Moscow became "the third Rome," and the Russian Orthodox Church was as closely tied to the State as was its Byzantine parent body. – Jansen "History of Art" (pg. 193)